


Would It Matter?

by Aliada



Category: StartUp (TV)
Genre: Angst, Could Be Canon, Drama, F/M, Maddie doesn't survive, Other psychological twists which are quite hard to digest, Some kind of a netherworld with insane symbols that keep coming out of nowhere - quite literally, song-fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-11
Updated: 2016-12-11
Packaged: 2018-09-07 22:17:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8818276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aliada/pseuds/Aliada
Summary: Water touches his hands in an even, icy flow. His skin hurts, but there is no more dust. No more hot, suffocating air. Airless shit, they call it, and that’s quite damn accurate, because air can’t be that heavy.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is a song-fic based on "Would It Matter" by Skillet.
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of StartUp. They are the property of their creators. No infringement intended.

_What if I just pulled myself together_

_Would it matter at all_

_What if I just tried not to remember_

_Would it matter at all_

 

Phil smiles. The mirror smiles back at him. His eyes look tired – worn out – but he still makes them lit up. It’s almost effortless: just one mechanic routine, like putting his clothes on or brushing his teeth.

Still, the reflection makes one sharp motion, dissolving into deceiving serenity – and he feels pleasure melting through his mind to his body, relaxing it just a bit. He can do that. He can.

It is art. Repeating, perfecting, filling with calculated sense.

His hand gives a little shake and he closes his eyes. He just needs a bit of a recharge, that’s all. 7 years. 7 damn years of violent chasing and setting endless scores.

Was there time to stop? Was that even an option? Would that still be him?

Rush. Adrenaline. This pulsating feeling in his veins. His personal drug.

And you didn’t just give up on addiction, did you?

_***_

_If I wasn't here tomorrow_

_Would anybody care_

_If my time was up I wanna know_

_You were happy I was there_

His boring, predictable days, tied into a nauseating chain of “been there, done that” to make a full circle and come back – empty and meaningless, as if covered in some sort of dust.

He remembers seeing the dust on his skin, remembers moving his face muscles and wondering how it will look on the surface. Should he make a wider smile? Or make his eyes more foreboding? It’s all here. In the pieces of the never-ending puzzle he’s trying to solve. In this exquisite technique. All is here.

Disgust makes him weak and sends a shooting pain to his forehead.

God. Just one more hour of oblivion. One more damn hour.

Water touches his hands in an even, icy flow. His skin hurts, but there is no more dust. No more hot, suffocating air. _Airless shit_ , they call it, and that’s quite damn accurate, because air can’t be that heavy.

His gun is also cool. He squeezes it and runs his hand through his hair.

The mirror dutifully repeats his motions.

Shirt. Jacket. Smile. Everything is in order.

The fabric feels soft under his hand.

He allows himself a couple more second before turning away and shutting his mind with a dull, final sound.

Okay, that’s enough for today.

His body gives a shallow shiver, which ends in a distant cheerful voice resounding in his ears – and then resounding once again, more loudly, more piercingly.

_“Phil? Where is it, Phil?”_

_“Phil?!”_

He tries to answer but his mouth is filled with cotton. Grey, choking cotton.

His eyes don’t see her scared face. They are still lost somewhere in her stealthy smile, in barely noticeable sparkles of inevitability in her eyes.

Where was he?

Was he somewhere at all?

_***_

_If I wasn't here tomorrow_

_Would anyone lose sleep_

_If I wasn't hard and hollow_

_Then maybe you would miss me_

 

Coffee. Hot. Refreshing. Good.

His steps feel solid.

Familiar faces are colored with what he calls _today’s shit_. It is never the same, but the keynote remains.

Two steps forward. Turn to the right. He could do that blindfold. Maybe he is.

Bored faces. Tired faces. Smug faces. He hates those most.

A compliment exchange, followed by “you-don’t-know-shit” smirks.

Two more steps.

Her voice isn’t so loud anymore. He tosses the keys on the desk, and they make a clinking sound.

_“It feels nice, doesn’t it?”_

He tries to answer, but it’s so wrong that he just touches instead. Her skin is warm. It makes his hand hot. Burning. He squeezes in response. The melting expression in her eyes gives a way to the cautious one.

He squeezes once again.

A jot of fear sharpens her face reminding him of reality.

He squeezes harder.

She cries out.

_***_

_If I wasn't here tomorrow_

_Would anybody care_

_Still stuck inside this sorrow_

_I got nothin' and going nowhere_

 

The pills are white. Maybe even with a touch of creamy. He doesn’t really care.

His stomach gives a sucking sound, and he tells himself to stop looking. His eyes close, but the burning is too strong to resist. It rises in volume and hits him with a knifelike motion.

He forces his eyelids down for a few more seconds.

Time stops, locked into the heavy waterfall of staggering details. He falters and falls back. His body feels like it’s made of fragile glass. Danger comes closer, and the water starts boiling.

The sound reaches the ground turning it into a famished, growling creature.

He remembers a salty, grilled taste of piping hot tuna melting on his tongue. He had almost forgotten that burn could be pleasant, that a few carefully cut slices could make a life better. Brighter. More.

His heart speeds up when his body finally touches the hard, unyielding surface.

There is no breaking, though; no split pieces – just this agonizing sound of boiling going through his ears over and over again.

His water had always been still. You could play with still. You could outsmart it.

But here – here he is alone, trapped in his own mind with no way out.

That is where all the noise is coming from. That is where he keeps all her cries and moans.

That is his reality now.

His crushed, nightmare-like reality.

His own hell.

The pills don’t look white or creamy anymore. Instead, they are just the right color – the color of his future.

He can’t look at water now, so he just washes them down with some whiskey. The burn is rather ridiculous.

Closing eyes. Lying down. It is so easy, so effortless. So right.

***

_I know I'm a mess and I wanna be someone_

_Someone that I'd like better_

_I can never forget, so don't remind me of it forever_

 

He wakes up in his dark place.

Hot water is filling his throat and making its way to his lungs.

He turns his head to escape and meets her eyes, vaguely realizing that his mouth doesn’t feel like cotton anymore and he can speak. Her eyes look warm and light. Phil knows that something isn’t quite right with them but can’t figure out what.

She looks at him, not saying a word. He is silent too.

Suddenly he thinks of kissing her, but water touches her lips and takes them in.

Phil flinches and backs down.

_“Phil!”_

His name stirs water, enough to make tiny, almost invisible bumps – but he notices them. He notices everything.

He tries to move his tongue, but it feels like a stone: heavy, parched, covered in salty grains that make his mouth hurt.

He pictures a bottle of icily cold water and gives a groan of disgust when all he gets is a brush of soft fingers on his cheek.

Is not that supposed to be a bloody “I-can-make-unreal-things-real” world? What is the purpose of that insanity?

Maddie is still looking at him with that unnerving smile. His lips quiver in response before he can’t stop it.

Hers are still underwater, dim and unmoving, as if sealed by some non-existing curse.

He would think it should be a forest, or some thorny thicket, but his imagination keeps shoving him dingy pictures from the friable, yellowish pages he used to thumb through as a child.

Keeps him ranking over the ashes until burning in his hands turns into a brief flicker of fire.

He doesn’t know how it’s possible – doesn’t want to know, but something tells him that it should work.

His body is shivering, but his lungs manage to grasp onto some air. He inhales quickly and greedily.

The sparkle bursts into a moving circle.

Maddie’s eyes don’t change.

Phil holds his breath.

The circle speeds up, creating a smooth flannel.

Phil closes his eyes.

_“Do you want to know what’s next?”_

His heart jumps, and he jerks, but a gentle touch on his eyelids makes him go still again.

_“No. Don’t do that. You won’t hear me if you see me.”_

He wants to find her hand, but she makes a warning sound and he doesn’t.

_“This place.”_ he hears her swallow, _“We will be here for eternity, Phil. Just two of us. And your choice.”_

His throat contracts, and he just wishes he hadn’t seen her eyes the way they were before. He just wishes…

“It’s done, Maddie. There is nothing I can… It’s…” his voice breaks, and he doesn’t even try to pick up the pieces.

_“Did you think you could?”_

The question makes him cold inside.

_“Did you, Phil? Because you can hear me now? Or because you can see my eyes?”_

She lets out a small sad chuckle, and he desperately wants to touch her again.

_“But it’s just an illusion. Like everything here.”_

The boiling sound gets louder before fading completely, and Phil suddenly knows that he doesn’t want to hear what comes next.

“I don’t want to, Maddie. I don’t want to know what’s next.”

He hears a sigh in her voice, and his eyes are no longer covered.

_“Because you already know it.”_

_“You can wake up now, but like you said, it won’t change anything. We still will be here together – as long as it takes.”_

Pain shoots through him and makes his eyes water.

“Why is it boiling?”

_“No one knows it but you. It’s your world, Phil. Your boiling water.”_

“Can I make it still?”

_“What for? It’s already here.”_

She takes his hand and he feels cool drops on his skin. He fights a stupid urge to lick them.

“Where are we, then?”

_“In-between. It’s never black and white, you know. It’s always grey.”_

She sounds almost amused, and he can’t fight it anymore. He has to look at her. Has to make sure.

Her hand disappears, and he forces his eyes open.

She _is_ here. Still beautiful. Still carrying this soft, hopeful expression that had always made him forget, and apparently, didn’t fail to do so now.

It wasn’t about her calling him, asking him to help. It wasn’t about doing something for her. It was about _changing_ – the only thing he could never do.

His tears are real this time. Not just some netherworld pretense, covered with never-existing crap. They are here: in his eyes, on his cheeks, on his trembling fingers that are still trying to touch her.

Her hair is wet and tangled. A drop of blood falls on his skin, and he buries it in his palm.

Yeah. That was what he did. What he could never undo, no matter how hard he tried.

Her dead eyes look foreboding now, but Phil still can’t stop looking, can’t stop touching and feeling hot blood on his hands.

Forgetting was a bloody good thing to do – until you had to remember.

***

_All the chances that have passed me by_

_Would it matter if I gave it one more try_

_Would it matter at all_

 

His throat tightens when a sharp sound makes everything around him collapse.

Not even seconds. Much quicker. Much more cruel and _real_.

It is his damn farewell then.

He shoots awake, breathless and confused.

His phone gives one more loud ring. Then one more.

He doesn’t have blood on him, but the wetness in his eyes – it is still there, taunting him and making him scream inside.

Phil exhales slowly, fighting the desire to throw the annoying thing across the room.

With his bloody shaking hands, he won’t even have to bother that much.

His mind freezes mid-step when he remembers the pills – those very ones that will have him dead in no time. Just the way Maddie was. They could even choose some decent river for him.

Nausea makes his insides squirm, and he is pretty sure it isn’t from the damn poisoning yet. Not for long, though.

One more long, noisy ring later, Phil’s fingers twitch and reach out. Making one convulsive motion. Feeling aftermath of cool and hot drops mixing up. Touching cold solid metal.

_Picking up._

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Comments are greatly appreciated!


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